I'm the One That I Want Read Online Free PDF Page B

allowed to grow and change and carry on into adulthood. They were horrible to me, but kids are like that sometimes. I want to forgive and be loving and try to see it from their point of view. My brother says that even now they always ask how I’m doing, and are genuinely happy when he tells them, “She’s just fine . . .”
    I turned my Korean name, Moran, into one of my most lasting and memorable routines. I portray my mother screaming it through a set of French doors. “MORAN!!!!!!” Why would you name your daughter that? It’s like calling your firstborn “Asshill.” Now, people call it out to me at shows—“MORAN MORAN MORAN!!!”—and it feels like love.
    The cowboy sleeping bag sits in a closet at my parents’ house. After 20 years and a lifetime of use, it still smells faintly of sap.

4
     
    POLK STREET
     
    About the time I was recovering from Lotte and Connie’s betrayal, my parents sold the snack bar to my uncle and bought a bookstore called Paperback Traffic. It was in the heart of Polk Street, which in the late ’70s was the Promised Land for homosexual men from all over the world. I didn’t understand it at first. I thought that men and women were together and that was it.
    When I called my brother a fag, I didn’t know what the word meant. My mother would panic and yell, “That is because she is a lesbian! Now you are even!” Men wanting each other seemed like a mistake. The young boys buying makeup at the Walgreen’s on Polk and California were surely buying it for their girlfriends. Weren’t they?
    Once, walking down the street, I saw a bunch of tough-looking guys dressed in leather chaps and hanging all over the parking meters. I was scared to walk by them because they looked like dangerous criminals, but when I did, they just smiled at me. One of them said, “I like your purse,” and pointed to my Hello Kitty bag. I smiled back, swinging the bag in a “Yeah, isn’t it great?” fashion, and then I noticed one of them had a pierced nipple! I was so shocked that I could not stop thinking about it for days and days. At school, I would sit at my desk and wonder how he got jewelry there. I thought maybe he had some crazy accident that left him with a hole in his nipple and he decided to be a good sport about it and put a ring in there. Then, I worried and worried that he was going to get it caught on something.
    My parents let me run around by myself all the time, and I would walk up and down the street and see those leather-chap guys hiding in doorways and alleys, often one standing against the wall and one kneeling down in front. I thought, “That is so nice. They are fixing each other’s zippers.”
    My mother’s explanation of homosexuality was equal parts clear and cryptic. “Sometimes, there is a man and a woman and they like to kiss. But, gay, is man like to kiss the man.” I still didn’t get it. Were they waiting for the right women to come along? Were they just practicing until they got married? Where were the girls?
    I finally got it when I was looking at Meatmen , a graphic porno novel that we sold at the store. I stared at page after page of muscled jocks sucking each other off—and I finally got it. These were the girls.
    When I really understood that I was surrounded by homosexual men, the first thing I felt was safe . I felt calm and protected and thrilled at the voyeuristic possibilities all at the same time. I knew I’d be okay. My body had started to develop earlier than other girls my age, and I had been the object of keen interest of many of my father’s friends and a male relative, and I had already received countless touches that felt rude and invasive. I was wary of men, especially older ones, and did my best to stay away from their leering glances, grabby hands and personal questions.
    Homosexuality brought me back to men, made me see they could be trusted, and even loved. I’ve never stopped feeling this way.
    The men who worked at our bookstore were not